In the meantime the first brigade, under General Sir James Kempt, had pushed through Bera to support the skirmishers, who moved parallel, with the second brigade, or rather branched off by degrees a little to the right, and engaged the enemy up the mountain leading into France. The obstacles on each side of the way rendered the mountain fearfully difficult of ascent; and it was, indeed, so intersected with rocks, trees, brushwood, and prickly briars, that our hands and limbs were pierced with thorns, and the trousers were literally torn in shreds from off our legs. When half way up the mountain, we emerged from the entangling thicket, fatigued and deluged with perspiration, and found the enemy plying bullets from a small fort. As soon as a sufficient number of men could be scraped together, we gained possession of that post by a charge of the bayonet: from thence we overlooked a very small field, enclosed by rocks, wherefrom the enemy, consisting of three or four hundred men, could no longer extricate themselves, and fell into our hands, or, more properly speaking, were left in a trap, in a valley between the first and second brigades. These captives may be fairly ascribed as prisoners to the first brigade, since they were within point blank of us, and not within a mile of the second brigade, who did not discharge a single shot at them, but on the contrary had quite enough to do, independently of that affair, in clearing the ground of the enemy opposed to them, from whom they took three pieces of cannon, which were abandoned in the entrenchments. After three hours' toil and clambering from rock to rock, we arrived within two hundred yards of the summit of the _puerta de Bera_, which was defended by a few hundred of the enemy; the remainder of their face was extended in order to oppose the second brigade, and to the right, along the wooded ridge, as far as the rock of la Rhune, distant about two miles from the extreme right of our division, to oppose the Spaniards. The rolling of musketry was now incessant on all sides. It was here I saw the remarkable death of one of the rifle corps, who had killed a French soldier, and who, before he had taken his rifle from the level, received a ball through his body, which caused him such excruciating agony, that his face was all at once distorted, his eyes rolled, and his lips, blackened with the biting of cartridges, convulsively opened. His teeth were tightly clenched; his arms and legs were thrown into an extended position, and he held out his rifle, grasped at arm's length, and remained stationary in this extraordinary attitude for a few moments, until he dropped down dead, as suddenly as if struck by a flash of lightning.